Elisabeth Moss: 'There's more support for more artistic cinema' in foreign markets

Next to her Top of the Lake: China Girl costar Nicole Kidman, who had four projects showing on the Croisette, Elisabeth Moss quietly emerged as one of the 2017 Cannes Film Festival’s acting MVPs. Moss appeared in two high-profile productions that earned solid critical reviews at this year’s event, and the former Mad Men star tells EW she hopes to keep working among the international prestige set.

“I love actresses and actors who don’t limit themselves to just American or British [productions]; people like Kristin Scott Thomas, who embrace so many different countries in their work. I would like to do more of that in the future, and [I love] the opportunity to work with these auteur filmmakers,” Moss says. “One of the wonderful things that you get in European film is more flexibility. There’s more support for more artistic cinema, for trying things that are different and unique. It’s not all about the bottom line and the dollar. I think that affords you great opportunity to try different things, so for me I hope it’s not the last experience I have.”

In addition to her work on the second season of Palme d’Or-winning director Jane Campion’s mystery TV series Top of the Lake: China Girl, which bowed out of competition at Cannes this year, Moss has a supporting part in Force Majeure director Ruben Östlund’s high-brow art culture satire The Square, which on Sunday received the festival’s top prize from 2017 jury president Pedro Almodovar.

“I worked for a long time without stopping,” Moss, a Golden Globe winner for her work on the first season of Top of the Lake, said of the multiple films and television shows she has worked on this year. “I worked over a year without stopping and just went back to back to back to back. It was not really by choice, it was just a matter of films that came up and projects that came up that I couldn’t say no to, so I sort of disappeared for a while and I didn’t do any press, I wasn’t home, I was out of the country, so now they’re all kind of coming out at the same time.”

The success of The Square, Top of the Lake: China Girl, and Hulu’s critically-lauded The Handmaid’s Tale have admittedly pushed the 34-year-old’s career in new directions, something she says could expand to include more TV comedies in the future.

“For me, The Square is actually kind of similar to something that I would like to do that I really haven’t done… my favorite show is Veep. I love [Veep creator Armando Iannucci’s] The Thick of It,The Office, and I love Master of None and that genre. That’s what I enjoy watching, and I would love to do something like that if I can.”